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Day Watch (RU - DVD)

Gabe enters the second level of the Gloom for part two of the epic series...

Feature

Warning: I cannot sum up the plot of Day Watch without spoiling some of the plot of Night Watch. Tread with caution.

The promised truce between the powers of Darkness and the powers of Light dangles by a thread. Anton, member of the Night Watch continues his role in the cosmic ballet, now aware that his son is the One, and a member of the army of the Darkness. We find him training the future White Witch, the only member of the Light army that can stand up to his offspring when the time comes. To make matters worse, Anton has been framed in the murder of a popular member of the Darkness, a crime that is not only punishable by death, but that may bring about the resurgence of the Light/Dark war.

Night Watch was an interesting, imaginative thriller, but suffered from a fractured narrative that left the audience with more questions than answers. It was a flawed, but entertaining work. The sequel, Day Watch, is a near masterpiece, and makes Night Watch a better film for it. The one thing even those disappointed in Night Watch seemed to agree on was that they wanted to see the planned sequel. Day Watch carries the story and characters through their arcs, and effectively brings the series to a satisfying conclusion (which is interesting, considering the series is supposedly a trilogy). However, without seeing the flawed majesty of Night Watch, Day Watch will not make a lick of sense to anyone. In fact, maybe even two viewings of the prequel will prove necessary.

Though not the man in power, Anton is the centre of the story, and his actions will lead to the salvation or destruction of humanity. At the base of the story is the theme of love—the love between fathers and sons, wives and husbands, new lovers, and best friends. The choices that characters make out of love or lack there of, propel nearly every salvation and betrayal in the film. Day Watch deals maturely with the concepts of jealousy, and fidelity, creating a world where misunderstandings can lead to mass destruction.

The mass destruction is more on the 'mass' side this time around. I'm assuming Day Watch’s budget out grosses its predecessors by a pretty healthy margin, because the action is large. The scope can be summed up by the ridiculous sequence where the Dark leader's wife drives her bright red sports car along the side of their multi-story headquarters, crashes through a window, tears down the hallway, and breaks down the office door. The stunning flashback opening where Mongol horses literally break down the walls of a Dark fortress earns the Lord of the Rings meets The Matrix comparisons made by over zealous critics when the first film came out. This is weird, wild, exciting and imaginative stuff.

I hope that the rumours about the third entrée being recast and made in Hollywood are false because this story is a Russian one, and I can't imagine this working as well minus the exotic angle. And the cast is great. The first half of the film is phenomenally amusing, particularly the sequence of events following Anton's body switch with a woman. These actors are especially sharp when it comes to impersonating each other, and they own these characters. The humour and warmth threaten to deaden the intensity and fascination, but never quite over-step their bounds.

Day Watch ends the same way Night Watch did, with the audience asking questions, only this time instead of wondering what they just saw they'll be wondering what happens next. Instead of building confusion this film develops intrigue, intrigue into the characters, their pasts, and their universe. The script is brave enough to throw away some of its most inspired ideas in favour of keeping the plot moving. Like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and (meh) Harry Potter, Day Watch inspires us to see the next chapter, even if the series seems to have reached it's conclusion.

Video

The Russian release of Night Watch that I reviewed back in December was lacking in the video field. It was grainy, dark, and lacking true blacks. At the time I was under the impression that it was the only release on the market. I have since discovered that I was wrong and that there was a legitimate R0 NTSC release also released from Russia. According to all accounts it was a better transfer.

For this review I've gotten a hold of a similar legitimate R0 NTSC disc of Day Watch, also produced in Russia. I guess those Russians know there's money to be made in the North American and Asian markets. Anyway, things look great. Except where necessary, the image is clean and detail levels sharp. Attentive viewers may notice some digital blocking and noise during some of the faster paced sequences. Occasionally dark scenes have some issues with colour bleeding, but these scenes are surprisingly few and far between. Apparently the titles of the films are meant to be taken somewhat literally as this film is much brighter in general than its antecessor. It's also presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen. Night Watch was presented in the less wide 1.85:1 format. This may be another indicator of budget inflation.

Audio

The R5 PAL Night Watch disc also had problems with its 5.1 Dolby Digital track, which has some decent surround effects, but seemed to have been recorded at a lower volume level because it had to be turned up to dangerous levels to compare to tracks found in similar films. This volume issue caused a slight hissing on the track as well.

Day Watch has a far superior Dolby Digital track, which while still utilizing effective directional effects manages to have the appropriate vibrancy. This means action sequences have more (excuse the pun) punch, and the wild surround effects of the extra-dimensional Gloom fights are almost overwhelmingly intense. Audiophiles should especially enjoy the indicative climax where all the characters literally and figuratively collide. This is a very solid track, on par with big budget North American releases.

The biggest problem with the disc, and the one thing that makes it a placeholder until the eventual (but as yet unannounced) US and UK releases is the subtitle track. Those who had the fortune to see Night Watch during its US and UK theatrical runs, or that got their hands on the new UK release, know that the filmmakers went out of their way to create unique and involving subtitles. Most likely they'll do the same thing for Day Watch. This probably isn't all that important to most readers, but what may sway their opinions in the matter is that fact that this disc's subtitles are severely lacking. On screen text almost never lines up with what's audibly being spoken, and occasionally the subtitles drop out all together. This wasn't a big enough problem that I (a man not known for his attention skills when it comes to plot) was ever lost as to what was going on at any given time, but it was frustrating.

Extras

This was a rather barebones disc. Included are a trailer, a music video, and a making of featurette, all in Russian audio only. The music video is a Russian hip-hop song, set to the epic opening battle, with inter-cut footage of a shirtless Ruskie pointing at the camera a lot. The making of seems to be more of an elongated advertisement, but it's nice to see the cast and crew's enthusiasm.

Overall

Day Watch comes highly recommended from this critic. It improves on its predecessor’s foundation and is most likely the epic entertainment world cinema fans were looking for in the original. There's a little bit of everything that makes modern film exciting here; offbeat characters, epic action, a genre-spanning story line, and genuine romance. This disc has some questionable subtitles and a lack of special features, but should act as a proper place marker for the eventual worldwide releases. As of yet there aren't even any theatrical release dates for the Europe or North America, so the more impatient among us may want to get in on the action now.

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murph wrote: Fox Searchlight is in the process of destroying the English dub of Day Watch. They have removed the ENTIRE OPENING SEQUENCE and replaced it with a TV-style recap of Night Watch! The entire basis of the film is rooted in what they have thrown away.

If you hunt out the US trailer for the up comming international release of Day Watch you can see that the intro is still in there....

As to the re-dub...you may or may not know Fox made changes to the Night Watch script while re-dubbing and re-cutting the film to tighten up the story and make things clearer...so they may be doing the same thing with Day Watch. Fox didn't do a bad job on Night Watch so i don't think...or i hope they won't mess this up.

Fox Searchlight is in the process of destroying the English dub of Day Watch. They have removed the ENTIRE OPENING SEQUENCE and replaced it with a TV-style recap of Night Watch! The entire basis of the film is rooted in what they have thrown away.

They have sat on the English voice tracks for four months while they chop the film. They've rewritten the subtitles a bunch of times, and some moron there actually wants to change the recorded English dialogue to MATCH THE NEW SUBTITLES. No joke.

If you have an opinion on this, FoxSearchlight.com has a comment page. Click on the Studio tab then click on About. Ye gods...

okay... gotta know: I've got the real english dub version of Night Watch and love it... but nowhere on the net can I find an english dub release date. Just wondering if anyone knows when (or even if....) this will be.

plus.... please, please, please tell me it's just a rumour and not actual fact that the third one will be recast and shot in Holiwood! They F**k up everything that isn't their own. (Especially if they get Speilberg to shoot it. Can you imagine the third one being all fluffy?!? When can American movie companies learn to leave something alone? Can anyone say Dizney sequils? (sorry. had to vent there))

Others keep telling me that "they must know what they are doing", but I can't wrap my mind around it. The Russian production company responsible for these films still retain the rights to show and distribute them in Russia and keep all the profits. Fox reportedly bought the International rights for 4M, they must have put at least another 5M in promotion. As of now I'd say they lost money. Granted they have the rights to Day Watch (Internationally) as well as the third film, but still. The only way I can see a production company making a big budget third installment is to litter it with nig name US actors, or worse yet remake them. Thinking about either route makes me want to punch my monitor.

This infuriates me, large studios buying foreign movies, and then sitting on them. If they can't be bothered, then stick it out on dvd. I don't want to have to wait until this time next year, for an international release.

Mal wrote: Fabricio De Zuasnabar wrote: this movie has not been released in the US yet, what's that about??? The film's Russian, which means it'll get a Russian release first. US distributors usually wait a long time before releasing foreign language titles - especially if they dub them.

Fox have been treating this licence with kids gloves. On one hand they went full force with marketing of promotional materials and advertising on the con circuit, but then distributed Night Watch so poorly (furthermore delaying it's release multiple times) that they lost any steam they may have generated. Night Watch only made 6M durring it's entire international run. If dvd sales don't generate the Serenity/Firefly effect I'm dubious that we will ever see Day Watch in theaters in the US. However it has been rumoured that it will in the early spring of 2007.

I have Night Watch site if anyone is interested in more info on the films www.intothegloom.com

Can't wait till this hits theaters here. I had to wait for "Night**tch" on the big screen rather than cop out and buy the DVD because it's really made to be seen on the big screen. I'll be buying Night**tch R1 when it comes out though; quality jollity.

Fabricio De Zuasnabar wrote: this movie has not been released in the US yet, what's that about??? The film's Russian, which means it'll get a Russian release first. US distributors usually wait a long time before releasing foreign language titles - especially if they dub them.

I'm pretty sure that I noticed a layer change which led me to beleive it was dual layered, but you may be correct. I'll look into it tonight. On my set the video was pretty great and I only noticed a few minor imperfections. I'm pretty sure the UK and US releases will be superior, but like I said, this was a nice placemarker.

Great review and I also thought Day Watch was much better compared to Night Watch. It isnt as confusing because you know all the characters by now, they dont need to spend so much time explaing everything like in Night Watch. If you never watched Night Watch then yes you would be confused.

The visual effects are great there very creative and used well especially the ending scene. Only thing I didnt like was the ending, it looks they could end the series just from that but there is suppose to another and ive also heard about the recasts. I just hope Fox dosnt runin the third film if they do plan to do that.